I think you’ll find the earlier name of this theater to have been La Mirada, not La Miranda. The drive-in was built about half a mile southwest of the Santa Fe Railroad’s old La Mirada station, which was on Stage Road near Excelsior Drive.
The then-unincorporated town of Santa Fe Springs (named decades earlier, when the railroad built a line through the area and developed a small townsite) was a few miles northwest of the drive-in’s Alondra Boulevard site. How the name got shifted to a theater so far south, I don’t know. The place must have done some ambitious annexation after it incorporated as a city.
In fact I do remember the name Galway, but I don’t recall the location, and I can’t picture the theater in my mind. I hadn’t thought of that place in years. I have a vague recollection of having seen it listed in the newspaper theater guides, though. I think it may have been one of several houses on Main Street that ran what were then called “nudie cutie” movies.
Is that the Grand Theater at 125 South Main? My source for the closing date of 1936 was the text accompanying a photograph of the theater at the L.A. public library’s online photo collection (search on “Childs Opera House”.) It’s apparently a paraphrase of the newspaper article that accompanied the picture at the time it was published (in either the Examiner or the Herald), which announced the impending demolition of the theater. (It also says that the theater had been known as El Teatro Mexico for the previous decade, which information I failed to include in my submission of the theater.)
I remember this theater being called the New Follies in the early 1960s, and I believe it was a live burlesque house at the time, like the Burbank. The bus I took home from downtown ran up Main Street, so I passed the theater hundreds of times, but never went there.
The history section of the Fountain’s web site says that it is the “…only continuously-operating movie theatre in the state” of New Mexico. (I wonder if they meant to say “oldest” rather than “only?”) If so, then, as this theatre has been operating since 1905, it would almost certainly be the oldest continuously operating movie theatre in the United States.
In 1931, United Artists announced plans to construct nearly a dozen new theaters in California, all to be designed by the firm of Walker & Eisen, with Clifford A. Balch associated. This theater in Pasadena was one of several of these, mostly in Southern California, which were actually built.
The United Artists theaters in El Centro, Inglewood, East Los Angeles and Berkeley, as well as the Four Star Theater in Los Angeles, were also succesful products of this colaboration, but several of the planned theaters remained unbuilt, including those designed for Ventura, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose and Vallejo.
Copies of old lists of the AIA’s membership would be handy to have in circumstances like this. Some large public library somewhere must have them. Copies of regional versions of “Who’s Who” would be useful, too. I don’t think any of them are online yet, but public libraries usually have them for their area. It should be easy enough for somebody in Chicago to double check this.
The Majestic Theater opened on December 12th, 1911, as a live theater and opera house. The architect was Henry C. Hollwedel.
The Spanish colonial revival style of the theatre’s current facade was very rare prior to its popularization by architect Bertram Goodhue, who used it for many of the buildings (some still extant) at the California Pacific Exposition of 1915 in San Diego’s Balboa Park. I suspect that the Mayfair’s facade may be the result of a later remodeling, perhaps done at the time it was converted into a movie house.
The Fox Belmont Theatre in Los Angeles was damaged by a fire in 1973 (and subsequently demolished), and some of the surviving movable decorations of that theater were used by Milt Larsen when he renovated the Majestic and converted it into the Mayfair Music Hall that same year.
The Belmont Theatre was demolished following a fire which damaged the building in 1973. Some of the surviving movable decor of the Belmont was used by Milt Larsen in his renovation of Santa Monica’s old Majestic Theater into the Mayfair Music Hall that same year.
This theatre was renamed the Columbia sometime before April of 1931. The April 17th, 1931 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor tells of a remodeling of the Columbia Theatre in Santa Paula, which had just been purchased by a Mr. J. Leslie Asher. New drapes, seats, projection and sound equipment were to be installed.
Centinella and La Tijera is only a block west of the Inglewood city limits, and less than two miles from all those theaters that used to be on Market Street. That’s probably why it didn’t last very long- too much competition from theaters in Inglewood and Westchester.
Also, when it was built, the Baldwin Hills were still mostly undeveloped, except for Ladera Heights. There was only a very small population there for the theater to draw on. It makes me wonder why they built it there to begin with, unless they were expecting the Baldwin Hills area to build up faster than it ended up doing.
This is actually a fairly old theater. I have an old newspaper article about it, but I can’t find it at the moment. If I recall correctly, the El Rey was opened in 1926 as the National Theatre, was owned by the Valley Empire Theatres Company, and was designed by the firm of Stark and Flanders.
I believe this to be the last big, single screen theater in the northern Sacramento Valley still operating as a movie house. It has survived this long largely due to its location almost next door to the campus of California State University at Chico.
I believe that the Vineland Drive-In, located a couple of miles east of El Monte in Los Angles County, is still open. One of my friends went to a movie there about three or four months ago.
The architect of the Elite Theatre was Wilfred B. Verity, whose offices were in the Garland Building in Los Angeles. Plans for the Elite were announced in late 1936.
The architect of the Alcazar was J.T. Zeller. The first contracts were let in late 1924. The estimated cost of the theater was $105,000, including an Estey pipe organ.
The address of the San Val Drive-In was 2720 Winona Street. Like the earlier Drive-In Theater in West Los Angeles, it was designed by Clifford Balch. Plans were announced in 1938.
This is the theater which is pictured on the dust jacket of David Naylor’s 1981 book, “American Picture Palaces.” That’s a much better photograph than I’ve been able to find online. There’s another color picture, showing the organ screens, on page 96 of the book.
The Los Angeles Times carried an article about the Criterion headlined “Santa Monica theater will open soon” in its December 30th, 1923 issue, so the theater must have opened early in 1924. An article in the Santa Monica Outlook of August 4th, 1923, announced that the theater’s organ had been ordered.
Awarding of the contract to W.J. Burgin for construction of the Rivoli Theatre was announced in Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of August 7th, 1936. The owner of the building was named as L.T. Edwards, and the plans were prepared by structural engineer F.E. Stanbery (no mention is made of Stanbery’s usual partner, architect Cliff Balch.) The building was to be of reinforced concrete construction, and the estimated cost was $45,000- a tidy sum in that depression year.
Announcing the completion of Carl Boller’s plans for this theater, Southwest Builder and Contractor of June 13th, 1924, said that the there would be six stores and the theater entrance on the ground floor, and that the third floor would be used as a cafe. It also says that the theater would have 1400 seats.
A Los Angeles Times article of April 26th, 1925 (part V, p.5.) contains an illustration of the theater.
The Long Beach Press-Telegram of May 24th, 1925, has an article headlined “Newly erected Ritz Theater to open doors at noon today.”
I think you’ll find the earlier name of this theater to have been La Mirada, not La Miranda. The drive-in was built about half a mile southwest of the Santa Fe Railroad’s old La Mirada station, which was on Stage Road near Excelsior Drive.
The then-unincorporated town of Santa Fe Springs (named decades earlier, when the railroad built a line through the area and developed a small townsite) was a few miles northwest of the drive-in’s Alondra Boulevard site. How the name got shifted to a theater so far south, I don’t know. The place must have done some ambitious annexation after it incorporated as a city.
ML: The Capri, which was at the southeast corner of 2nd and Main, is listed here under its original name, the Granada Theater:
/theaters/2401/
In fact I do remember the name Galway, but I don’t recall the location, and I can’t picture the theater in my mind. I hadn’t thought of that place in years. I have a vague recollection of having seen it listed in the newspaper theater guides, though. I think it may have been one of several houses on Main Street that ran what were then called “nudie cutie” movies.
Rats! I typed 125 South Main again, which is the wrong address. It’s 110 South Main.
Ken:
Is that the Grand Theater at 125 South Main? My source for the closing date of 1936 was the text accompanying a photograph of the theater at the L.A. public library’s online photo collection (search on “Childs Opera House”.) It’s apparently a paraphrase of the newspaper article that accompanied the picture at the time it was published (in either the Examiner or the Herald), which announced the impending demolition of the theater. (It also says that the theater had been known as El Teatro Mexico for the previous decade, which information I failed to include in my submission of the theater.)
Ken:
I remember this theater being called the New Follies in the early 1960s, and I believe it was a live burlesque house at the time, like the Burbank. The bus I took home from downtown ran up Main Street, so I passed the theater hundreds of times, but never went there.
The history section of the Fountain’s web site says that it is the “…only continuously-operating movie theatre in the state” of New Mexico. (I wonder if they meant to say “oldest” rather than “only?”) If so, then, as this theatre has been operating since 1905, it would almost certainly be the oldest continuously operating movie theatre in the United States.
In 1931, United Artists announced plans to construct nearly a dozen new theaters in California, all to be designed by the firm of Walker & Eisen, with Clifford A. Balch associated. This theater in Pasadena was one of several of these, mostly in Southern California, which were actually built.
The United Artists theaters in El Centro, Inglewood, East Los Angeles and Berkeley, as well as the Four Star Theater in Los Angeles, were also succesful products of this colaboration, but several of the planned theaters remained unbuilt, including those designed for Ventura, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose and Vallejo.
Copies of old lists of the AIA’s membership would be handy to have in circumstances like this. Some large public library somewhere must have them. Copies of regional versions of “Who’s Who” would be useful, too. I don’t think any of them are online yet, but public libraries usually have them for their area. It should be easy enough for somebody in Chicago to double check this.
According to the index at the Chicago Art Institute, the name of the architect is Eichenbaum, not Eichenberg.
The Majestic Theater opened on December 12th, 1911, as a live theater and opera house. The architect was Henry C. Hollwedel.
The Spanish colonial revival style of the theatre’s current facade was very rare prior to its popularization by architect Bertram Goodhue, who used it for many of the buildings (some still extant) at the California Pacific Exposition of 1915 in San Diego’s Balboa Park. I suspect that the Mayfair’s facade may be the result of a later remodeling, perhaps done at the time it was converted into a movie house.
The Fox Belmont Theatre in Los Angeles was damaged by a fire in 1973 (and subsequently demolished), and some of the surviving movable decorations of that theater were used by Milt Larsen when he renovated the Majestic and converted it into the Mayfair Music Hall that same year.
The Belmont Theatre was demolished following a fire which damaged the building in 1973. Some of the surviving movable decor of the Belmont was used by Milt Larsen in his renovation of Santa Monica’s old Majestic Theater into the Mayfair Music Hall that same year.
This theatre was renamed the Columbia sometime before April of 1931. The April 17th, 1931 issue of Southwest Builder and Contractor tells of a remodeling of the Columbia Theatre in Santa Paula, which had just been purchased by a Mr. J. Leslie Asher. New drapes, seats, projection and sound equipment were to be installed.
Centinella and La Tijera is only a block west of the Inglewood city limits, and less than two miles from all those theaters that used to be on Market Street. That’s probably why it didn’t last very long- too much competition from theaters in Inglewood and Westchester.
Also, when it was built, the Baldwin Hills were still mostly undeveloped, except for Ladera Heights. There was only a very small population there for the theater to draw on. It makes me wonder why they built it there to begin with, unless they were expecting the Baldwin Hills area to build up faster than it ended up doing.
This is actually a fairly old theater. I have an old newspaper article about it, but I can’t find it at the moment. If I recall correctly, the El Rey was opened in 1926 as the National Theatre, was owned by the Valley Empire Theatres Company, and was designed by the firm of Stark and Flanders.
I believe this to be the last big, single screen theater in the northern Sacramento Valley still operating as a movie house. It has survived this long largely due to its location almost next door to the campus of California State University at Chico.
W.H. Wingo:
I believe that the Vineland Drive-In, located a couple of miles east of El Monte in Los Angles County, is still open. One of my friends went to a movie there about three or four months ago.
Listed here: /theaters/7692/
The architect of the Elite Theatre was Wilfred B. Verity, whose offices were in the Garland Building in Los Angeles. Plans for the Elite were announced in late 1936.
The architect of the Alcazar was J.T. Zeller. The first contracts were let in late 1924. The estimated cost of the theater was $105,000, including an Estey pipe organ.
The address of the San Val Drive-In was 2720 Winona Street. Like the earlier Drive-In Theater in West Los Angeles, it was designed by Clifford Balch. Plans were announced in 1938.
I found a small color picture of the Ohio here:
http://www.columbus-connections.com/links.htm
This is the theater which is pictured on the dust jacket of David Naylor’s 1981 book, “American Picture Palaces.” That’s a much better photograph than I’ve been able to find online. There’s another color picture, showing the organ screens, on page 96 of the book.
I found an old postcard view of the Ohio Theater posted here (Google’s cache of the site):
View link
The Los Angeles Times carried an article about the Criterion headlined “Santa Monica theater will open soon” in its December 30th, 1923 issue, so the theater must have opened early in 1924. An article in the Santa Monica Outlook of August 4th, 1923, announced that the theater’s organ had been ordered.
Awarding of the contract to W.J. Burgin for construction of the Rivoli Theatre was announced in Southwest Builder and Contractor issue of August 7th, 1936. The owner of the building was named as L.T. Edwards, and the plans were prepared by structural engineer F.E. Stanbery (no mention is made of Stanbery’s usual partner, architect Cliff Balch.) The building was to be of reinforced concrete construction, and the estimated cost was $45,000- a tidy sum in that depression year.
Announcing the completion of Carl Boller’s plans for this theater, Southwest Builder and Contractor of June 13th, 1924, said that the there would be six stores and the theater entrance on the ground floor, and that the third floor would be used as a cafe. It also says that the theater would have 1400 seats.
A Los Angeles Times article of April 26th, 1925 (part V, p.5.) contains an illustration of the theater.
The Long Beach Press-Telegram of May 24th, 1925, has an article headlined “Newly erected Ritz Theater to open doors at noon today.”
Southwest Builder and Contractor, issue of September 26th, 1945, says that the plans for the Crest were made by Kaiser Engineers.